The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy | Page 8

it as-
sumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you { daft as a bush, but very
ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and
of course dry yourself o with it if it still seems to be clean enough. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some
reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his
towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of
a toothbrush, face
annel, soap, tin of biscuits,
ask, compass, map, ball of
string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the
strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items
that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think
is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it,
slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his
towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Hence a phrase which has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you
sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his
towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really to-
gether guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)
Nestling quietly on top of the towel in Ford Prefect's satchel, the Sub-
Etha Sens-O-Matic began to wink more quickly. Miles above the surface of
the planet the huge yellow somethings began to fan out. At Jodrell Bank,
someone decided it was time for a nice relaxing cup of tea.
"You got a towel with you?" said Ford Prefect suddenly to Arthur.
Arthur, struggling through his third pint, looked round at him.
18

"Why? What, no . . . should I have?" He had given up being surprised,
there didn't seem to be any point any longer. Ford clicked his tongue in irritation.
"Drink up," he urged.
At that moment the dull sound of a rumbling crash from outside ltered
through the low murmur of the pub, through the sound of the jukebox,
through the sound of the man next to Ford hiccupping over the whisky Ford
had eventually bought him. Arthur choked on his beer, leapt to his feet.
"What's that?" he yelped.
"Don't worry," said Ford, "they haven't started yet."
"Thank God for that," said Arthur and relaxed.
"It's probably just your house being knocked down," said Ford, drowning
his last pint. "What?" shouted Arthur. Suddenly Ford's spell was broken. Arthur
looked wildly around him and ran to the window.
"My God they are! They're knocking my house down. What the hell am
I doing in the pub, Ford?" "It hardly makes any dierence at this stage," said Ford, "let them have
their fun." "Fun?" yelped Arthur. "Fun!" He quickly checked out of the window
again that they were talking about the same thing. "Damn their fun!" he hooted and ran out of the pub furiously waving a
nearly empty beer glass. He made no friends at all in the pub that lunchtime. "Stop, you vandals! You home wreckers!" bawled Arthur. "You half
crazed Visigoths, stop will you!" Ford would have to go after him. Turning quickly to the barman he asked
for four packets of peanuts. "There you are sir," said the barman, slapping the packets on the bar,
"twenty-eight pence if you'd be so kind."
Ford was very kind { he gave the barman another ve-pound note and
told him to keep the change. The barman looked at it and then looked at
Ford. He suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he
didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In
moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny sublimal
signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense
of how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth it is never
possible to be further than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace,
which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed. Ford
Prefect was at this moment under great stress, and he was born 600 light
years away in the near vicinity of Betelgeuse.
19

The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible
sense of distance. He didn't know what it meant, but he looked at Ford
Prefect with a new sense of respect, almost awe.
"Are you serious, sir?" he said in a small whisper which had the eect of
silencing the pub. "You think the world's going to end?" "Yes," said Ford.
"But, this afternoon?"
Ford had recovered himself. He was at his
ippest.
"Yes," he said gaily, "in less than two minutes I would estimate."
The barman couldn't believe the conversation he was having, but he
couldn't believe the sensation he had just had either. "Isn't there anything we can do about it then?" he said.
"No, nothing," said Ford, stung the peanuts into his pockets.
Someone in the hushed bar suddenly laughed raucously at how stupid
everyone had become. The man sitting next to Ford was a bit sozzled by now. His